BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)-Davao regional director Demetrio E. Casipong called on the public to use coins of smaller denominations in order to increase circulation and lower down production cost.
He said the number of small value coins such as .5, .10, .25 and .50 centavos in circulation is depleting yearly since people tend not to use them in buying commodities.
“Our small denomination coins are depleting yearly since the public tend not to use them,” Casipong told reporters in an interview after the culmination of the 24th National Statistics Month at the BSP seminar hall on October 29, 2013.
This has forced the Central Bank to produce more to address the increasing demand of the growing population.
Casipong said that each person in the country holds an average of 180 pieces of coins (includes P1, P5, and P10), and when multiplied to the population of more than 90 million, there are around 20 billion of them in circulation.
“Based on those estimated figures alone around 50 percent or less of the small denomination coins go back into circulation.” he said.
He did not divulge as to how much the circulation has dropped or how much the coin production cost has increased.
Casipong said what triggered the low circulation is that the public see them only with little value.
“People will either leave their change in their homes in jars or piggy banks or some of them would just give them to the beggars,” he said.
“A bag of new 1 centavo coins contains 5,000 pieces and costs P50 but you also have to consider the cost of production, transportation, packaging and etc. that will increase the cost we spend for the delivery and production of coins,” Casipong added.
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on October 31, 2013.
